


Matcha, Please

by pinkariess (lovelcce)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bubble Tea, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bubble tea au, But its okay!, M/M, but then i decided thats not really plot relevant so i scrapped it, everyone suffers from life!, i was gonna call this fic Mochi because i think thatd be a nickname that sokka calls katara, katara has nightmares, katara’s gonna literally just vibe and drink bubble tea, like theyre gonna be fiiine, sokka and katara are SOFT siblings, sokka and zuko are gonna fall in love, sokka doesnt fucking sleep, they cuddle when katara has nightmares and sokka tries his best to be a good big brother, zuko is a tired minimum wage employee at his uncles tea shop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23541808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelcce/pseuds/pinkariess
Summary: “What the fuck are you doing?” Katara says, one hand on her hip as she opens the door to Sokka’s room.The boy is sitting on his bed, a cup of microwave stir fry noodles in his hand as he hits the cup with a spoon. He looks up, his hair down and tangled, with deep bags under his eyes. “Eating.”
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

“What the fuck are you doing?” Katara says, one hand on her hip as she opens the door to Sokka’s room. 

The boy is sitting on his bed, a cup of microwave stir fry noodles in his hand as he hits the cup with a spoon. He looks up, his hair down and tangled, with deep bags under his eyes. “Eating.”

“I can see that. Why are you eating at 3am?” Katara raises an eyebrow, blinking the last bit of sleep from her eyes before dropping her shoulders. “Can’t sleep?”

“Why are you up?” Sokka asks, deflecting as his little sister sits next to him, hugging her knees to her chest. Her blue pajama pants crinkle at the knees, and she drops her head onto his shoulder. 

“Bad dream.” The girl’s hair tickles Sokka’s neck as he rests his head against her’s. 

Carefully balancing the cup on his leg, Sokka wraps the two of them in his comforter, a light blue colour with patterns of waves. He drops the remote for the tv in her hands, and the two lean against each other, an old sitcom from the eighties filling the room. 

Sokka grabs his cup once more, beginning to scoop noodles into his mouth as Katara wrinkles her nose. 

“Why are you using a spoon?” 

“No clean forks.”

“So you didn’t... wash one?”

“Katara, it’s 3 in the morning.”

The first thing Sokka noticed as he gasped to conciousness was that his sister’s hair tasted disgusting. Gagging on it as he lunged upright, the boy ran a hand down his face, digging his fingertip against his eyelids and sticking his tongue out. He glanced back down at Katara, who was hugging a pillow and still somehow peacefully asleep. 

“Of course you get the ability to sleep through anything.” Sokka mutters, standing and shuffling around his room, looking for the sock he had somehow lost during the night. “I wake up if the temperature changes, but I can choke on your hair and you sleep right through it! Disgusting!”

The missing sock was wedged between his bed and the wall, the black fabric thankfully standing out against his sheets. Sokka slips it back onto his foot, taking the opportunity to adjust the end elastics of his sweatpants. Grabbing the remote from the floor as well, he turns the tv off, letting the room lapse into darkness. 

“Sokka?” Katara says, turning over and reaching an arm to pat the space he had been occupying. Her eyebrows are wrinkled, and the baby hair stick to her cheek where it had been pressed against the pillow. 

Sokka sits back on the bed, grabbing his phone before slowly leaning backwards, dropping his head onto Katara’s stomach. “‘M here.”

The girl relaxes once again, drifting back into a slumber. Sokka checks the time, it’s only 4:45. Inhaling sharply, he drops the phone onto his chest and stares up at the ceiling. 

“How many sheep do you think I can count before you wake up for the day?” He musses, pausing for a response he knows Katara won’t give. “I’m thinking at least five before I get bored.”


	2. Chapter 2

The store’s homey, green placemats that match the paper lanterns spread across the ceiling. The air feels stagnant as Zuko pokes at the air conditioner, a screwdriver useless in his hands. The machine sputters for a few seconds, pushing a cloud of dust into the boy’s face before shuttering to a stop. Blinking away teary eyes as he wrinkles his nose, Zuko drops down from the chair he had been using as a stool. Cursing under his breath, he runs a hand down the front of his shirt in a feeble attempt to remove the dust from his uniform.

The Jasmine Dragon is especially quiet today, though Zuko isn’t complaining. He hates dealing with customers who giggle and fawn at him when they think he’s turned away. The teenaged girls had latched onto the bubble tea trend with vigor, causing his uncle’s shop to skyrocket with profit. But it came at the expense of Zuko’s thinning patience. So a slow day, with only the woman who runs the chinese restaurant next door coming for her daily tea, is welcome in the boy’s eyes. Rubbing his face with a wet paper towel to remove the dust, Zuko winces slightly as it trails over the scarring. It doesn’t hurt, on the contrary, he can’t feel the paper towel at all. But the senseless motion makes his skin crawl as he drops the towel into the trashcan. He’s still working, and his uncle isn’t paying him to have a breakdown in the backroom about old scars. Shaking his head, Zuko brushes some more dust off his shirt before sending a message to his uncle about the air conditioner’s poor performance.

**I’ll look at it tomorrow. There should be an electric fan in the office, you know where the key is.** ❤️

Zuko barely reads the text before the doorbell rings, and he drops his phone back onto the prep table with a clatter. Grumbling to himself, he drags his body to the front, where two teens are looking over the menu quietly. The girl points at the menu repeatedly as the two teens seems to be discussing their orders, her brown hair messily tied into a knot at the base of her skull. Zuko notes that out of the two, the girl has the better sense of style, a pretty blue sweater over a pair of jeans. The boy of the other hand looks like a complete mess, his black sweatpants not quite matching the black of his wrinkled hoodie. Not to mention that the boy’s hair, which Zuko assumed had once had a buzzed undercut, has grown a little longer than socially acceptable. Catching his distorted reflection in the countertop, Zuko suddenly decides he has no room to judge anyone’s appearance.

“Excuse me,” A voice says, and Zuko snaps his head up, locking eyes with the girl, who smiles shyly. “Sorry, can we order?”

“Of course.” Zuko nods, swallowing thickly as he grabs the notepad. “What can I get you?”

“Two matcha teas, please. One with tapioca.” The girl says, turning to her brother and pausing as she nudges him.

“Oh, uh, one,” The boy pauses, glancing back at the menu and furrowing his eyebrows. “One earl grey.”

“Sweetness level?” Zuko says, not bothering to look up from the notepad.

“The matchas will be 75%, and the earl grey 0%.” The girl says, still smiling slightly as Zuko begins to ring up their order.

“Anything else?” The two customers shake their heads, and Zuko blinks as he squints at the small blinking total on the register. “That’ll be 93.31元.”

The two teens quickly pay, retreating to one of the tables and Zuko begins to mix their drinks behind the counter. As the first two drinks begin to mix in the shaker, Zuko takes the moment to glance up at the customers. The girl’s smiling, laughing at sometime the boy said. She’s pretty, if you’re into the girl next door. The boy on the other hand, has his cheeks puffed slightly, and is definitely in no way attractive to Zuko at all. Not one bit. Not even remotely. The way he wrinkles his nose doesn’t make Zuko’s cheeks darken with a blush, and he would not appreciate anyone saying differently. Shaking his head slightly, Zuko turns back to the bubble teas, sealing the first two and starting the last one.

Aggressively focused on his work now, Zukoquickly finishes the teas, dropping them into a cardboard holder before sliding them across the counter. “Your teas are ready.”

“Sokka?” The girl says, and the boy squints at her before getting up to grab them.

“Thank you.” He says, nodding at Zuko, who uses every ounce of self control in his body not to scoff at him.

And then, almost suddenly, the two teens are gone, and Zuko slumps against the wall. The air conditioner sputters once again, and the boy repeatedly thuds his head backwards. The doorbell rings again, and Zuko drops his eyes to see his sister’s girlfriend, Mai, enter the store. She doesn’t even bother sparing him a glance before leaving for the backroom to drop off her bag and sweatshirt. Well, his sister’s sweatshirt, Zuko notes, before slamming his head one final time.

“Are you done with your mental breakdown, yet?” Mai asks, looking at him with an uninterested expression.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m going.” Zuko huffs, standing away from the wall and grabbing his keys from under the counter. “Need anything before I go?”

Mai walks away from him, and Zuko glares after her before turning towards the door. “Azula wants you to pick up green beans from the store.”

“Tell her to get them herself.”

“She said stop being a brat.”

“You didn’t even tell her what I said.”

“She expected that response.”

Zuko glances up at the ceiling before looking back at Mai. “Try not to get too bored, Mai. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not know shit about foreign currency, but I'm trying my best. <3
> 
> Azula and Zuko live with Uncle Iroh in this AU, with Zuko also working in the tea store while Azula has after school activities in the form of sports! I don't know which sports, but probably something aggressive!


	3. Chapter 3

Suki graciously accepts her tea from Sokka as she enters the home, sliding her shoes off before quickly snuggling up to Katara on the couch. The two girls begin giggling to each other, ignoring the flickering television. Sokka scrunches his nose with a roll of his eyes. The kitchen and living room are seperated by a halfwall, connected to the breakfast bar. Though the two siblings used it more for prepping food than eating. Glancing at the microwave’s clock, Sokka sighs. There’s still a few hours left until his father comes home from work, and Sokka had watched more Naruto Shippuden in the past day than he’d like to admit. Pulling a large mixing bowl from the cupboard, a thick plastic monstrosity that had been there since Sokka could remember. It was a pale blue, with flecks of purples and pinks that almost made it look pretty. For the nineties, maybe.

“Do we have any pie dough?” He asks, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the TV.

“No idea.” Katara says, entirely distracted as she laughs at something Suki had said.

Sokka huffs slightly, mumbling about little sisters under his breath as he opens the fridge. It’s fairly empty, only a large container of strawberries sitting on the middle shelf where they kept snacks. Biting his inner cheek, Sokka makes a mental note to go grocery shopping the next day. Maybe if he got ready when his dad left for work, he wouldn’t have to walk to the store. At least he’d definitely be awake. Straightening up, Sokka moves a few almost empty boxes around on the top shelf before catching onto a Pilsbury tube of pie dough. _Perfect_. Shoving the tube of dough into the crook of his elbow, Sokka carefully maneuvers the box of strawberries to the counter next to the sink. Dropping the ingredients onto the counter, Sokka blinks a couple times. Deciding that he didn’t really need to grab the strainer, the boy simply puts the whole box of strawberries under the water to rinse them off.

“What are you doing?” Suki’s voice says, startling him.

“I’m cooking?” Sokka replies, his head snapping to look over at the girl in the entrance.

“You don’t sound too sure about that.” Suki smiles now, before leaning against the breakfast bar. She’s holding her tea, which is already half gone. “What’re you making?”

“Pie, I think.”

“You think?”

“I’m planning to.” Sokka says, turning back to the sink with a roll of his eyes. He glances up at the ceiling, reminding himself that he has to be nice to his sister’s girlfriend.

“Do you… want to be alone while you attempt to make pie?” Suki says, and Sokka desperately wants to agree. “I can go bother Katara if you’d rather.”

“What’s she doing?” Sokka turns the water off, gently shaking the box of strawberries a few times before putting it back on the counter.

“Said something about needing a shower before dinner.” There’s a soft groan from one of the stools as Suki pulls it out, Sokka assuming this means she’s sitting down.

Sokka nods, grabbing a knife and cutting board. The two lapse into silence, with the soft slide of the knife against the cutting board and Suki’s nails on her phone screen in the background. Each strawberry has the top removed, then cut in half before Sokka drops them into the mixing bowl.

“How sweet do you like your pie?” Sokka says, measuring roughly a cup of sugar before dumping it into the bowl as well.

“What?”

“The pie?” Sokka repeats, turning around with a raised eyebrow to find Suki staring at him with a bewildered expression.

“Oh.” She says, glancing back down at her phone. “I don’t really eat a lot of pie. So, I dunno.”

“I’m almost wounded, Suki.” Sokka says, sniffing with mock offense before laughing. “Pie’s easy when you have pre-made dough.”

Rolling up his sleeves, Sokka begins mixing the strawberries and dry ingredients around with his hands. It quickly all mixes together, the strawberries soaking everything until his hands become pink.

“So I heard there was a cute guy at the bubble tea store.” Suki says, and Sokka’s glad that he’s facing away as his cheeks burn.

“Didn’t notice.” He mumbles, washing the pink from his hands before fumbling with putting the pie dough into a baking pan.

“That’s not what Katara said.” Sokka can practically hear the smile in Suki’s voice.

“I don’t think her opinion in men really matters.” Sokka says, dumping the mixing bowl of strawberry filing into the pan.

“We’re gay, not blind, Sokka.” Suki laughs, and Sokka turns his head to glare at her. “So? Are you gonna try and get his number?”

“No.”

“Why not!”

“I don’t know him. He looks straight. I’m not looking for a boyfriend.”

“You get to know him by getting his number and going on a date. You look straight as far as any strangers know, so how can you know he is. And dear god, Sokka, please. You’re lonely.” Suki’s put her phone down, leaning over the counter towards him as he rolls the rest of the dough over the pie.

“I’m not lonely. I am constantly surrounded by people.” Sokka shakes his head, and the girl sighs.

“Just because you live with you family doesn’t mean you can’t be lonely.” Suki squints at him. “When was the last time you hung out with friends?”

Sokka pauses, his instant reply that he doesn’t have friends rejected before he can spit it out.

“See?” The girl sounds almost smug with his silence. “You need to get out somehow. Maybe a date with a cute guy is how you do it.”

“Is Katara done with her shower, yet?” Sokka says, cutting into the dough with a little more aggression than necessary.

“Fine. Fine. I’ll drop it.” Suki doesn’t let her disappointment hide. “But just think about it. What’s so bad about asking for a boy’s number?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pie is based off of the tiktok by @/rileybona. I have never made a pie before in my life because I do not like fruit, but I like to think Sokka needs a stress reliever. 
> 
> I recently realized that most of my fic ideas across different fandoms include at least one bubble tea shop AU, so I guess this particular subset of fluff is just my brand now. I'm content with it. (Though I really do miss drinking bubble tea myself.)
> 
> As per usual, I have never beta read a thing ever. This is filled with grammar and spelling mistakes, please don't rip into it for that! Kudos and comments are much appreciated, and thank you so much for reading! <3


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